Family Matters

This one is a hard one to write. If my husband knew I was writing this, he would kill me!

Let’s just rip the bandaid off…… My Mother in-law doesn’t like me. There, I said It! I know, I know…… what’s new! Most people have some issue with their in-laws. I love my Father in-law! Such a caring and kind man. He adopted my husband many years ago. To set the scene, my husband has two younger siblings by his adopted father and his mother. For the rest of this post we will use MIL and FIL. We will also use SIL and BIL for sister in-law and brother in-law.

I truly don’t know what I have done to make her not like me over the 18 years we have been together. I sometimes think she borderline hates me and hate is a strong word. We are nothing alike and I tend to speak my mind….. but I have always tried to get on her good side, but I refuse to kiss her ass! I mean we have live in our house 13 years and I think she has visited 5 times. I know it’s not 10……. maybe 7 at the most. She has been to her daughter’s house at least 3-4 times a year. We both live on the east coast, 8 hours apart. She has 3 grandchildren now, but she only visits 2. And I’m sure it’s my fault that she doesn’t have a better relationship with our son.

On the flip side, my husband “says” he is ok with everything and doesn’t need his mom in his business. They have never had a close relationship. He did tell me once, that he felt like his mom treated him like the bastard son. The child that reminds her of the marriage that didn’t work. I almost told her this in an email once when she tried to lay the guilt trip on us for not traveling to his sister’s for Thanksgiving one year (pre-cancer diagnosis). But, I didn’t. I told my husband before I was going to send it and his response was, Thank you, but it won’t make a difference because she doesn’t see it. Again, I am sure that I could have done more for us to be closer….. called more…. visited more….. written or face-timed more. That is what I think about. If not for him, then to make sure our son had a closer and better relationship with his grandparents. I love our son to death, but he is like his dad, an introvert that keeps to himself and waits for others to reach out to him first. We have had several talks about how it’s a shared relationship. If you want friends and family to reach out to you, you have to reach out to them. Me, I am an extrovert…… extreme extrovert at times…… but not so much anymore…. for obvious reasons.

Fast Forward…….. a year and a half ago. If you read my previous post, Surprise, it kind of picks up from there.

When the issues started and a colonoscopy was scheduled, we did tell his parents about it and told them we would let them know more after. Then we went camping for a long weekend in hopes to relax and enjoy family time before the big life changing day.

Big day comes, colonoscopy perform, doctor delivers the heartwrenching news – it’s cancer, and now I have to call his parents. Choking out my tear-soaked words to his parents while I’m leaning against the hospital hallway wall, with my friends hand on my shoulder was the hardest thing I ever had to do. To a mother that her son has cancer and it’s the bad kind……. worst news you can get. Anyways, you would think that the first thing or one of the first things out of her mouth would be, I’m coming out to help you…… nope. It was tell me the details and what’s next. She didn’t come out until weeks, if not more and that was ONLY because I told her YOUR SON NEEDS HIS MOTHER!

So, here it is a year and a half later and she has been out twice. She has been to his sister’s house at least four times, once we found out after the fact. That visit was because his sister had to have eye surgery so she went out to help with the kids. Mind you, her in laws live about 20 minutes away and help take care of the kids. We have NO family in our area. If it wasn’t for our friends, we would have had no help. Am I bit bitter about this?! Damn Straight! I have every right to be considering that I bend over backwards to keep her in the know on everything that is going on with her son’s treatments. Do you think she calls me to see how I am doing?! Fuck no! But I guess I should be happy that when she talks to my husband, her son….. She tells him to give me a hug and tell me thank you for the updates. I guess it’s something.

If you have read this post, I would love your thoughts on it. Thank you